The present invention relates to an internal goods transportation system primarily for freight and luggage transport in large airports. In large airports it is usual to make use of so-called `fingers` that extend along or out to stands for several airplanes and that radiate from a central terminal area for passengers and their luggage. The terminal area, at least in principle, is divided into three main areas, viz. a departure, an arrival and a transit area. In the departure area a transport system is arranged for reception of luggage at the check-in positions and for feeding the luggage to a sorter system, in which the luggage is sorted out to the various stands and then moved to the latter in containers. In the arrival area is arranged one or more presentation belts, on which arriving luggage is presented to the passengers, and to which the luggage is moved in containers from the separate arrived airplanes. The transit area normally has no corresponding or associated conveying system, as containers with arrived luggage can be moved to the sorter system in which the luggage may then be sorted out to the respective new destinations together with luggage from the area of departure.
The associated luggage transport in tractor driven containers is very heavy in large airports, and long ago it has been desired and proposed to automate the transport extensively. At a principal level this is very easy, e.g. by imitating such already developed transport systems, in which taxi cabs under automatic control can be moved through the shortest distance from any point in the system to any other point therein, just as the nearest empty cab can be called to any place. Thus it would be possible to replace the containers by a large number of small carts, each for holding a few pieces of luggage, which may then be guided under computer control to the arrival area or direct to the new stand in case of transit luggage. However, more practical investigations show that such a system with its associated high number of rail switches will be practically impossible to control in an effective manner, inter alia because it is a particular complication that within relatively brief periods of time intensive traffic should be established from or to certain stands, and this traffic pattern may shift rapidly, or rather be repeated for other combinations of stands. It is a superior requirement that the luggage transport be effected safely and rapidity, and it has been found that for such a conveying system in a large airport it is practically impossible to calculate the relation between the number of single carts and the desired or the actual conveying capacity, this being highly inconvenient in the planning of work.